to go quite yet," she said quickly, "so don't wait if
you're ready."

"Oh, you have? What's up? Thought you was 'most tired to death just now.
You don't look much tuckered, seems to me."

Rachel laughed lightly.

"Well, I'm beginning to find some fun in it, mother! I want to stay a
little longer. I've got the shawl you sent me for--it lay on a big chair
where you left it--and now I'm hunting up something else. Good-night,
and don't wait for me."

She flitted on, her mother and companion gazing after her.

"Looks loike Rache has found a beau, or is looking for one," giggled
Mother Flaherty, showing her yellow fangs with unpleasant recklessness.
(This, you will remember, was before her accident.) But Mrs. Hemphill
resented this with dignity.

"I guess you must 'a' forgot she and Will Price was keepin' comp'ny when
that gun went off and shot him. She don't never say much--Rache
don't--but she's gret to remember. And she ain't lookin' for beaux yet,
I can tell you."

But the old Irishwoman only bobbed her wide cap borders to and fro and
giggled again, as if not wholly convinced.

It was while Rachel thus stopped in the hall to speak with her mother
that Larry was haranguing the crowd at the doors of the refreshment
rooms, and when she presently returned to poor Dan, still crouched upon
the hassock, her report was as follows:

"I saw Tonguey Murfree going in to supper with that handsome Miss
Lavillotte--and a queer thing, too, for her to notice him, I
thought--but all of a sudden he left her at the very door and rushed out
through the front hall, so I guess he went home. But Dan, I had just a
glimpse of a man pushing his way in, and it made me think of Lozcoski.
But such a looking face! It was a mere glimpse, but I could only think
of some animal. It wasn't just human. Do you suppose it was him?"

"Don't know," said Dan. "Anyhow it's all right, if Murfree keeps out of
his way, and he will probably, if he's gone home. I'll stay till they
come out from supper, and see the man again."

He said this in an odd voice, and did not look at Rachel. He seemed to
be making concessions to somebody, and to be ashamed of doing it. After
a look into his upraised eyes, which were full of a trouble she could
not quite fathom, she dropped into the sheltering chair, and said
gently,

"Dan, I've wanted a talk with you so long! Have I done anything to make
you give me the cold shoulder? Or--or is it just that I make you
think--of